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Organized Play Member. 12,142 posts (12,185 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters. 7 aliases.


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Yes, the alchemical bonus from mutagen stacks with the enhancement bonus from your belt of physical might.


If a swarmsuit were sufficient, why not full plate armor, or a sufficiently thick full-body robe? Or do what a certain Billy Idol lookalike did and throw a blanket over your head if it's only a quick jog.


Booyaka.


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Adhering to wealth by level guidelines by ensuring that player wealth rubber-bands back to normal relatively soon after using consumable items is a pretty good way of encouraging their use--so long as players are aware this is being upheld. Cracking that scroll isn't nearly as big of a deal when they know that more treasure is on the way to make up for it in a couple of sessions. Just make sure to follow through.

Apart from that, there's nothing wrong with players having a few situational aces up their sleeve even if they never end up used. Some of them *will* end up used, and the players will feel clever having prepared to escape from 100 nasty situations even if they only end up in 10 of them.


Yowza.


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Hmm. You could play a character with the Young template and polymorph into a normally-Diminutive creature, but that might be a bit excessive (and subject to order of operations arguments).


You could become incorporeal yourself via dust form, undead anatomy iv, a shadowform belt, a ghost needle, or a spectral shroud.

You could polymorph into something with an extra arm and use that ectoplasmic metamagic rod.

An amulet of grasping souls worn by you would work, but only once per day.

You could combine your usual weapon with a rod for a 50% markup on the cheaper item's cost, GM permitting.

You could use the actual Ectoplasmic Spell feat instead of a rod. One spell level higher isn't too bad. For single-use buffs, you could scribe scrolls with the metamagic applied and save your slots for day-to-day stuff.

You could wish for the ability to buff your ectoplasmic familiar as though it were corporeal. Doesn't seem all that out there in terms of effect, but your GM might suggest limitations if it seems like too much.


Sure, why not? The "giant giant frog" case already comes up when casting summon monster ii with a lesser rod of giant summoning.


Is there a reason permanent image wouldn't be superior for your situation?


The usual spell for this is protective penumbra. It would still behoove the vampire to remain in the shadows as much as possible, though, otherwise folks might notice the strange shadow over a creature that otherwise ought to be brightly lit.


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I feel like we gamers could be making much more meaningful connections here if not for certain policies that I'm probably not allowed to bring up.

What do you folks think? Are we really happy staying at arm's length during times like these?


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JiCi wrote:
Where does it state that the attack action is an actual action on its own?

*rubs eyeballs yet again* In the Combat chapter of the Core Rulebook.


Cheers, and have fun. : D


That's a reasonable interpretation that still respects the plain English definition. So long as they die as a direct result of your hit, it shouldn't matter if it takes a few turns for them to bleed out. Similarly, if someone else stabs your foe until they're unconscious and dying and you finish them off before they bleed out, you delivered the killing blow. (This goes both ways--if you stab someone to dying and your friend finishes them off, they delivered the killing blow, not you.)

Technically, it would count toward the feat's goal even if the foe dies but is later resurrected. That doesn't mean you can just kill-and-revive repeatedly, though, as the goal calls for "a number of your hated foes"--killing the same one over and over still only counts as one foe having been killed.


avr wrote:
Blahpers, that reads to me like someone was using virtually for emphasis and didn't think about the meaning. Oh, you could read it as waking up to find yourself resting on a huge pile of hair and with overgrown nails, but I'd suggest not.

Yeah, probably. Though that would certainly be funny.


If this is intended to simply be a rules discussion, then as far as I know, the only Paizo rules covering one-armed PCs are optional rules in the Skull & Shackles player guide, and any other rulings would be either extrapolations from the general rules about how many hands are required for various actions or house rules to fill in the gaps. While there are several feats and abilities that compensate for, e.g., blindness, there aren't so many that compensate for the loss of a limb without basically replacing the limb (e.g., the constructed pugilist archetype).

There may be third-party supplements that address the situation, and you could certainly implement house rules for it as well. There's no one right way to play this sort of thing, and figuring out the best one for your table is going to be a problem for you and your players--otherwise we're likely to steer the discussion into areas you've already expressed disinterest in exploring.


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"Fine, if I don't get to use Vital Strike when I want to, nobody gets to use it at all. So there!"

I made characters who made great, if not optimal, use of Vital Strike. Your proposed change would cut off those characters' noses to spite Paizo's face. Or something. Meh, metaphors are overrated. Basically you'd be decreasing my satisfaction with the feats rather than increasing it, and it sounds like I'm not alone in that.


The blow that results in the enemy acquiring the "dead" condition.

There's no rule-specific definition of "killing blow", so use the plain English definition.


Reksew_Trebla wrote:
You said already some examples, but those are clearly not the full truth. A PC will not go down in one hit to anything they are supposed to be able to fight unless somebody is royally messing up.

*cackles in The Haunting of Harrowstone*


All of this. From the perspective of the affected creature, it probably never happened--they move from one moment of awareness prior to stasis to the next after the stasis is removed, probably wondering where that pesky wizard in their face went and why the castle they were fighting in now appears to be a thousand-year-old ruin.

I'm intrigued by this part of the description:

Temporal Stasis wrote:
Its body functions virtually cease

Does this imply that some part of its body functions do not, in fact, cease?


That hex is ridiculous. Bonus that they printed it in a book unlikely to receive errata.


The Stealth rules spell out how to resolve the opposed check in the case of a tie:

Stealth wrote:
Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Creatures that fail to beat your Stealth check are not aware of you and treat you as if you had total concealment.

In other words, ties go to the sneaker, as the perceiver didn't beat the sneaker's Stealth check.

On the original topic:

Taking 20 wrote:
Taking 20 means you are trying until you get it right, and it assumes that you fail many times before succeeding.

If your character has no means of evaluating whether they "got it right", then they cannot take 20. This is simple enough when picking a lock, as "got it right" means they either disable the device or find it impossible to disable.

In general, taking 20 doesn't really make sense for rolls that you make in which the result isn't immediately known or in which you cannot try again when it becomes known that you failed.

(Edit: Removed extraneous example.)


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1. Yes. While the claw attacks are no longer natural attacks, they're still considered attacks that use claws and can benefit from Vicious Claws.

2. TL;DR: Figuring out attacks with one or more sets of claw blades isn't really any different than figuring out attacks with one or more short swords.

Once you're wearing claw blades, they are no longer natural attacks and no longer follow any of the natural attack rules--they work like any other manufactured weapon, and you can't use the natural claws of any hand that is being used to wield another weapon (in this case, the claw blades).

If you wear one set of claw blades for one hand, you can make your full iterative attacks with that hand and make one claw attack with your unbladed hand as a secondary attack (+15/+10/+5 with blades, +10 with natural claws).

If both hands are wearing claw blades, you'll just get the iterative attacks (+15/+10/+5), either all with one hand, all with the other hand, or any combination thereof. If you want more attacks with two sets of claw blades, see the Two-Weapon Fighting feat chain.


Might work if the pincushion has some other ability that triggers on being wounded, I suppose.


Close your eyes and face a bright light. It's probably like that.


As I understand it, in general (and with some exceptions) the same effect doesn't apply more than once even if there are multiple instances of the effect. This is the principle behind the "Same Effect More than Once in Different Strengths" text--I'd wager the writers thought it unnecessary to have a separate paragraph for "Same Effect More than Once with Equal Strengths". This also fits with the Evil Eye/bestow curse FAQ--multiple instances of these effects do stack, but only when they penalize different statistics or otherwise have different effects.

Fortunately, in this case, the bonus types cover the situation, so there's nothing to argue about. : )


avr wrote:
blahpers wrote:
avr wrote:
The second instance of third eye also adds 1 minute to the duration allowed.

I'm blind.

I've read and reread the Special line a dozen times and cannot find where it adds a minute, only where it adds one the number of times you can activate it.

I'm seeing things. My bad, dunno how it happened.

Phew, thanks for verifying I'm not going crazy! Think of it as a testament to your usual precision that I assumed it was me. : D

This ability text is so weird, weird enough that I'd pretty much have to house rule it.


avr wrote:
The second instance of third eye also adds 1 minute to the duration allowed.

I'm blind.

I've read and reread the Special line a dozen times and cannot find where it adds a minute, only where it adds one the number of times you can activate it.


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The closest thing to an official definition of "living creature" I know of is a post by JJ from 2009 stating that living creatures are creatures with Constitution scores. That isn't really an official rules post, though, so you're only marginally better off than the default "what even is life?" situation.

Of course, your wizard could just research a homunculus-only version of the spell and imbue it with that.


I don't play clerics very often, but when I do, they're clerics of a philosophy.

...Though I do have one concept for a Vudran cleric whose rather pathetic familiar is their household god incarnate.


TheKillerCorgi wrote:
Preferred spell wrote:
Choose one spell which you have the ability to cast. You can cast that spell spontaneously by sacrificing a prepared spell or spell slot of equal or higher level. You can apply any metamagic feats you possess to this spell when you cast it. This increases the minimum level of the prepared spell or spell slot you must sacrifice in order to cast it but does not affect the casting time.
Does this feat allow an arcanist to sacrifice prepared spells to effectively get more spells per day?

Technically, yes, with the caveat that those extra spells per day must be a spell selected for Preferred Spell. That's a pretty neat trick that depends on the rules equivocating on the term "prepared spell" between "normal" prepared casters and arcanists--the term doesn't really meant the same thing for both categories.

Good luck finding a GM that will let you out-sorceror the sorceror, though. Arcanists are already ridiculous enough compared to most sorcerors and wizards.


Without calling it overpowered, the design principle is that certain sets of abilities are usually assigned to certain slots in order to force players to make meaningful choices between said abilities. A character could get a belt of mighty constitution or a belt of incredible dexterity, but if that character wants the effects of both, they generally have to pay a premium. Moving one of the two bonuses to another slot circumvents that decision. A character doing so is thus more powerful than a character who does not, as they have more options when it comes to allocating their slots. Is that overpowered? That's a subjective decision.

Edit: In any case, Wulcrath, hopefully this discussion has illuminated the trickiness of pricing custom items even given the guidelines in the various rulebooks. At the end of the day, it's up to the designer or GM to make that call.


VoodistMonk wrote:
It's a nonissue that it's an amulet. It might matter if you were trying to craft a custom Amulet of Dexterity... but you aren't. It's a Wizard's bonded object, which is its own thing.

Bonded objects allow the bonded creature to enhance the object as a magic item as though they had the appropriate item creation feats. There's no indication that they are also intended to get around any other restrictions on magic item creation.

That said, deciding how much a magic item costs is completely a GM/designer call, so if they want to make a bonded amulet more permissive than an amulet crafted normally, they're empowered to do so. It might even be reasonable to discount the item on occasion due to it being restricted to working only for that character (but only if that restriction is meaningful).


1. Taking it as written, ecause the description states that the devil is summoned rather than called, specific does indeed override general, and the devil cannot use its innate summoning abilities. But I wouldn't take it as written, because . . .

2. The spell subschool says "(calling)", but the description screams "(summoning)", right down to the devil vanishing at the end. I'd consider "(calling)" an editing mistake.


Please don't use that word, even for self-deprecation.

There is indeed a way!

Create Demiplane wrote:
Alternatively, when cast within your demiplane, you may add to your demiplane (or remove from it) one of the following features (or any of the features described in create demiplane) with each casting of the spell, in which case it has an instantaneous duration.
Create Demiplane wrote:
Portal: Your demiplane gains a permanent gate to one location on another plane, which can only be used for planar travel. This location must be very familiar to you. This gate is always open and usable from both sides, but you can secure it using normal means (such as by building a door around it).

So, you can cast create greater demiplane again to remove the portal entirely, than cast it once more to add a new portal. Note that these castings do not need to be made permanent--they instantaneously modify your existing permanent demiplane--so as long as you have your focus, you're in good shape.


Gummyslayer wrote:

So it is the year 2020. And still no one gets the "empower spell" spell. I am ol' school DnD, new to pathfinder, n u all r driving me crazy. So lets do the literature evaluation before the actual math.

EMPOWER SPELL defined is: ALL variable, (note the comma) numeric (adjective) effects of an empowered spell (the spell u r casting) are increased by half. INCLUDING BONUSES (which means it has a + before the number) to those (meaning 1 or more) dice rolls.
Definitions:
Variable- not consistent or having a fixed pattern. Liable to change and/or be changed or adapted.
Numerical- relating to or expressed as a number or numbers.
So kiddos what this means is if the number is set (i.e. d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, etc.) It can not be effected. However if the number before that dice such as a (1) when working with a 1d8 roll can be changed such as 1d8/caster lvl. And you are lvl 15. It becomes a 15d8 + 7d8 = 22d8 roll. Always round down when halves are not even. Now if that 1d8/caster lvl has a +5 bonus, the bonus is halved rounded down and becomes +7. So your equation at lvl 15 casting a spell of 1d8+5/lvl of caster would look like this, 22d8+7. So basically your variable is when caster lvl or + bonuses apply to your initial spell. Another example:
Unerring Weapon- This spell causes a weapon to veer closer to vital areas, improving the result of a critical threat. This transmutation grants a +2 bonus on attack rolls to confirm critical hits plus 1 additional point per four caster lvls (maximum total bonus +7). Now do you remember that part in empower spell feat. INCLUDING bonuses. This means a lvl 8 spell caster can give a +4 bonus normally. But with empower spell feat it becomes a +6 bonus. Maximum using empower spell rounded down is +10 bonus to an attack roll.
Note empower spells doesn't work with spells that give +1 bonuses only. Bonuses must be +2 or higher, and the effect must be to a rolled dice. It will work with fireball but not flaming sphere. Will work with bulls strength but not mage armor.
Hope i made it...

That's a unique interpretation, but it doesn't agree with the FAQ nor any Paizo rules designer post I've ever read.


The entangled condition does not prevent a 5-foot step (edit: unless, as vhok mentioned, the entangling effect is anchored to the ground).

The entangle spell, however, does, because in addition to causing the entangled condition on a failed save, it makes the affected area difficult terrain (no save).


vhok wrote:
Belt of Incredible Dexterity but uses a different slot, very expensive usually 4x or so the normal cost so around 64,000

A slotless item usually costs twice the slotted cost. It'd be strange to charge four times the cost for an alternate slot item. David knott 242's take is a popular one and I've never really run into problems with it.


Ice tomb requires a Fortitude save and doesn't affect objects, so it doesn't affect undead.


Hard to say what they meant. The text is written for weapons in general, and the same question comes up if you're using any sort of trip weaon since trip weapons can be used to drag. Explicitly listing the maneuvers allowed and disallowed in the dueling description is a bit strange since (a) it uses up word count and (b) it's already defined elsewhere. I don't know if they intended the dueling list to be definitive or simply the default.

If it were me? I'd allow it. It seems like the list is just a clarification of the meaning of "maneuvers made with the weapon only", so rules allowing additional maneuvers to be made with the weapon should also extend the list.


This would use the rules and guidelines for creating custom magic items, with the only difference being that the wizard doesn't need to have the Craft Wondrous Item feat.

I strongly recommend reading through that content thoroughly as well as the Ultimate Campaign guidelines for pricing new items. The most important guideline is that the tables and formulae are a last resort--if at all possible, use an existing magic item with a similar effect as the basis for determining the price of a new custom item.


There's always Reach Spell, I suppose.


Nothing says that they don't stack. On the other hand, nothing explains exactly how they stack, and there are multiple valid interpretations.

This gets more fun when one of the effects is "roll twice and take the lowest" and one is "roll twice and take the highest". Throw in a "may reroll after rolling but before result is revealed" for extra seasoning. For a flavor explosion, make it a situation in which the GM is secret-rolling for the player.


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JiCi wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Ooh, on that subject, more options for mounted combat specialists that don't involve binding the character to an animal companion, including ways to keep non-companion mounts alive above low levels.
Don't we have feats that allow any class to get a familiar or companion?

We do, and that's awesome, and I've used them quite a bit. But sometimes I'd like to play a mounted character without a dedicated pet and, well, not suck at it. Sometimes the general's horse is just a horse.


And thus the Biggest Ball of Twine in Pact Worlds System was born--in a surprisingly short amount of time due to the wonders of exponential growth.


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As willuwontu said. You do not cast spells into magic items--you expend them to provide the item's required energies.

Creating Potions wrote:
Material components are consumed when he begins working, but a focus is not. (a focus used in brewing a potion can be reused.) The act of brewing triggers the prepared spell, making it unavailable for casting until the character has rested and regained spells. (That is, that spell slot is expended from the caster’s currently prepared spells, just as if it had been cast.)

The distinction is important. The spell is expended as though it has been cast, but it has not actually been cast. (Similar text appears for the creation of other types of magic item, including scrolls.)


If the object is being used as a weapon (i.e., being "thrown downward"), it's a thrown weapon attack, with all that this entails. This includes, but is not limited to, Dex to hit, Str to damage, enhancement bonuses/effects if applicable, and nonproficiency penalty if applicable.

If the object is simply being dropped, it's a falling object attack. This is just a ranged touch attack. Dex to hit applies; Str does not. The damage done is strictly based on the object's size, falling distance, and GM discretion, and the object itself is assumed to also take damage. Proficiency is not an issue.


VoodooistMonk wrote:
8: tilapia

Do dooooo be-do-do

(sorry, it happens every time)

*ahem*

26: Maka-yika
27: Red snapper. (Very tasty!)
28: Supposedly filleted shabout, but in reality the meat was cut from the lower parts of murdered merfolk and smuggled in.


Ooh, on that subject, more options for mounted combat specialists that don't involve binding the character to an animal companion, including ways to keep non-companion mounts alive above low levels.


Gaze wrote:
Only looking directly at a creature with a gaze attack leaves an opponent vulnerable.

Scrying is about as indirect as it gets.

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